When a someone is being belittled,
ridiculed and verbally harassed you have a choice. Either block it
out and ignore it or say something. If you don't know that someone,
they are a stranger, as is the harasser, you can walk away or you can
step up. There is a very faint boundary between saying something off
your own accord and saying something on behalf of someone else. You
need to be careful not to say anything that could make the situation
worse but you know from your personal moral code that what is
happening is wrong and you need to do something.
A few weeks ago I was in a pub with
some friends. Over my shoulder I could hear the voice of a man,
frustrated and bitter, telling the woman he was with she was
worthless. I did not know either of them. In fact this was the only
thing that prevented me jumping out of my seat and screaming at him.
He was talking to her loud enough for me to hear but not shouting.
The woman he was talking to did not say a word. He repeatedly told
her what he thought of her, over and over like a mantra, and she
didn't say anything.
I don't know if what I did next was
beneficial or not but I felt it could only change the mantra, which
at this point I was sick of hearing. I walked over to their table,
crouched down to eye level with him, (he was holding an electric
cigarette like a knife in his grip so I took it off him and laid it
gently on the table so he couldn't stab my eye out with it) and began
stating in a hushed voice that the topic of his conversation was
offending me. I didn't try to suggest that what he was saying was
wrong, nor did I assume I knew anything of how the woman he was with
felt.
How could I possibly know?
All I did know was that those words are
used as weapons to keep people down, and in my mind I may have
thought he was being abusive to her, what I said was merely personal.
“People in this room can hear your
conversation, what you are saying is offending me and others.”
Stunned and confused, he just waited
for me to finish. It felt like I was speaking to him for ages but in
actual fact I think it was only a moment. I became the one chanting a
mantra.
“What you are saying is offending
people in this room, I can't speak on your behalf (I said to the
woman) so I won't, but I can speak on behalf of myself and I am
offended. Please change the topic of your conversation.”
He finally gathered together some
words, “YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT
ME!”.
I repeated myself, asking him to just
not talk so offensively in public because people can hear him. I
stood up, over him, and asked again clearly. I smiled at them both
and said thank you, and walked back to my table.
A moment later he started shouting “My
life is none of your business.”
“You're right, but I cant close my
ears to you when you are speaking offensively and loud” was my
retort.
“What do you want? What do you want
me to talk about?! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!” he said.
“You're right, I'm sorry. Please,
continue you're conversation. I'm so sorry, please carry on.” but
by this point others in the room had started joining in and agreeing
with me so what I said mattered very little.
“You and your little stooges,
thinking you're so big with them behind you.”
I can't remember exactly what else was
said, some expletives and angry shouts. He got up, as did the woman
he was with (who now was smiling at me) and put on their coats to
leave. As he left, one of the stooges shouted Fuck off, people
clapped and that was that.
I was a tad intoxicated. I almost
straight away worried I had said something wrong and how he was
right, it isn't my business. Luckily though, the people I sat with
that evening were in unison agreement that someone needed to say
something. I tried to not undermine the woman in that situation, the
voiceless woman (who said three words in the course of the event) who
was being told what the man thought of her. The words he used were
the words you hear being used in abusive and controlling relationship
stories and I was hearing them being used with my own ears.
If I could remember the actual
conversation I would better know what exactly the outcome was but I
am sure that if nothing had been said I would have regretted it
forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment